It was an early start this morning. I got up at 5:15 and rushed to get a few last things done before Kara picked me up at 6 am. She called and said she would be 10 minutes late. Now I was getting very anxious because the departure time was 20 minutes earlier than I had thought. She picked me up and it was raining so that the roads were iffy. I was making her nervous and she was making me nervous, but we got there with time to spare. The security line of course was a hassle. I had a character that I let in front of me and then regretted it since he was a newtimer to security and kept asking questions and making jokes. We boarded in zone 4 - I swear by then 90% of the passengers were already on, but luckily there was space for all our carry-on luggage (no check-ins).

The flight was a little choppy but less so than was predicted. Grand Cayman came into view and there were no big clouds

. Today was a little overcast here but not the rain that was forecast by the pilot. I tried to catch up on sleep as Kara worked on crocheting a scarf for John. She was half done by the time we landed!

After checking into the hotel, we headed for the beach. The water was pretty warm despite my very first impression of its being cold. Am I turning into a worry wart? We tried to walk along the beach but ran into barriers - private property, walls, rocks. The coast has a narrow sandy beach composed of a lot of coral sand with stones - hard on the feet but nice and deep. After having to abandon our beach walk, we walked along the main street parallel to the beach. We found the grocery store and some restaurants for future reference. We passed a restaurant and thought about going back there for our big, expensive dinner.

After walking a bit farther, we found a path to the beach and walked out onto a pier surrounded by limestone rocks or coral, not sure which. Kara noticed some blue fish swimming nearby and some sea urchins. We walked out to the end, sat, looked at the map and did some planning. On the way back, I saw a large fish swimming next to the pier. It might have a yellow snapper or a tarpon - not sure what they look like but I know they get fed at the restaurant at 9 pm

. After we stopped to look at it, more big fish came by as well as some smaller blue fish and some small, very narrow fish. We were quite excited.

We walked back to the Wharf Restaurant and went in despite out casual wear and our lack of reservations. We had a lovely meal - Kara had basil and pistachio-encrusted sea bass and I had a tuna dish with beautifully chopped red, yellow, pepper accompanying and a potato salad spicy with wasabe mayonnaise. We had our tropical cocktails and even had dessert - key lime pie and coconut creme brulee. Quite the meal! It will be hard to follow up with granola bars and cheese and crackers.